WASHINGTON (RNS) — Below the sparkling chandeliers of the Museum of the Bible‘s ballroom, the murmurs of fervent prayers for mental health healing rose above the sound of plucked guitar strings.
Those prayers, uttered by a national gathering of Latino evangelical pastors on Tuesday (Oct. 15), will be backed by a new mental health initiative launched by the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference’s Center for Ministerial Health.
“This is NHCLC 2.0,” the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, the organization’s president, told RNS. The Center for Ministerial Health is the first of three new centers that will form a new structure for the Hispanic network of thousands of evangelical congregations, many of them Pentecostal or charismatic.
At next year’s leadership summit, the organization plans to launch the Center for Public Policy, which will be based in Washington, D.C., and then a year later, it plans to debut the Center for Kingdom Collaboration, with a focus on uniting different Christian organizations.
Plans for the new centers emerged as NHCLC’s leaders gathered for prayer. “We heard this in our prayer time and in our conversations with Heaven about what’s the future for the movement,” Rodriguez said.
The focus on health was revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic. “COVID exposed vulnerabilities,” said Rodriguez, explaining that NHCLC had seen pastors leaving ministry and struggling with suicidal ideation. “It broke our hearts,” he said.
Pastor Reina Olmeda, who is directing the mental health initiative, told attendees she was hesitant to share vulnerably while doing her graduate work in psychology.
“Something inside me said, I want to do this, but my culture was speaking louder,” Olmeda said, later telling RNS that Latino communities face both cultural pressures not to disappoint their families and stigma based on ideas that mental health struggles are a sign of spiritual failure.
But the Holy Spirit was working on her, Olmeda said, and eventually she spoke about her emotions.
“That moment, I broke something for the next generation, for my daughters,” Olmeda thundered, switching to Spanish. “When I spoke, I said, my daughters will not have to battle to say how they feel.
“Embracing vulnerability allows the Holy Spirit to communicate with us, and it is through the work of the Holy Spirit that we find healing.” She said, “Jesus was a great example of vulnerability…If Jesus could do this, why can we not? Why do we have to hide?”
NHCLC is providing various trainings for pastors to learn about their own mental health and to provide preventative care for the stressors that their communities confront. They’re also preparing sermon outlines, group session guides, a webinar and a masterclass for Mental Health Awareness Month in May.
